[FlickeringHope]

Hi; a couple days ago I found a wild baby mouse on our garage floor. This hasn't been the first time I've found a wild baby mouse on the garage floor, but, unlike the first time, I left him there with hope that his mom would come back and get him. We thought maybe she was in the middle of moving her offspring to a safer location, heard me come downstairs, freaked, and fled, dropping him.

I waited 3 hours, and he was still there. Babies need to be fed every 2- 3 hours, so, for fear he would starve to death, I brought him up, placed an old shirt in a box, set up a heating pad(it's a heating pad that takes the temperature of the animal laying on it, and feeds it back to them), and mixed up some kitten milk formula. He's been doing great - his eyes started opening yesterday, his ears twitch a little bit at sounds, and he has awesome motor skills.

However, this morning, I am a little concerned. He just started weaning today - I read on various other sites that when they start nibbling on your fingers it means they're ready to be started on weaning - and he had been doing that lately. So I presented him with two items to choose from: a rice krispie soaked in the kitten milk he's been fed on, and a tiny piece of bread soaked in the kitten milk. His feeding before the one just now, he completely ignored both, but this just past feeding he went for the piece of bread. He took off a smaller piece of it, and nibbled at it. I let him run around some more on both of my hands, then had him finish the rest of the milk in the syringe.

I started rubbing his butt(to stimulate him to excrete feces or urine), however, as of late, if he has feces to expell he'll eat it straight from his anus. His feeding at 1:58 am, he excreted feces, and his feeding at 9:04 pm yesterday, he urinated.

As he was walking around on my hand, he left a streak of wet feces. This worried me. I've previously had hamsters, and whenever they had "wet feces" it was diahrrea, and thus Wet Tail. Has this little guy developed Wet Tail? Should I go out and get some DriTail to pep him back up again? Or is this normal for a baby mouse who consumed some "solid foods", and will it pass?

Please...if you're online and know ANYTHING that could potentially help, I urge you to respond to this post! I have the utmost concern for this little critter - I was him to thrive and do well, I don't want him to succumb to illness.

EDIT: Just now, I thought I should mention another plausible reasoning I came up with for why he seems to have diarrhea. I was a little late on feeding him - usually he gets fed every 2 - 3 hours, but I shut off the alarm this morning, crawled into bed, and fell back asleep for a moment. Maybe, due to the fact he was fed a little late; he ate a bit too fast and it caused diarrhea...?

 

[FlickeringHope]

Nevermind - I just fed him again a couple minutes ago, and the diarrhea has cleared up, So turns out, it was because of the change in diet.

 

[Dustette]

yeah, if diarrhea happens once and not very heavy don't worry!
I'm a wildlife rehabilitator, and you're doing great!
Now that his eyes are open and he's eating the bread, you can space feedings so that he eats more on his own you can also put a dry piece of bread in the cage with him, and once he's eating the solid bread too, you can think about releasing.
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Since you're feeding him less, please handle him less. A tame mouse is no good thing in the wild, you want his instincts to kick in and be a little scared of humans and other big things you're nice, but other people aren't always.

 

[FlickeringHope]

Thanks for the response.

He's not really.. eating the bread, I mean, he nibbles at it, but other than that he's still mostly interested in the milk still. I also don't really have the option in putting a soaking piece of bread in with him, as all he is in is a box, with an old shirt of mine and....well.... I don't need to get his bed all kinds of messed up with milk that's spoiling. :/

I have been spacing the feedings further apart though - he takes care of his bodily functions on his own now with little to no help from me.

 

[Dustette]

you need to put it in his cage though, otherwise he will never learn that he has to look for food and it's not being served to him every given hour.
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Take a bottle cap and put a tiny piece of it in the corner of the box. and put the shirt only in half the box. That way he won't get it everywhere. It's normal he eats almost nothing, he's tiny! At first they will just suck on the bread with the milk, then eat a bit of it. Just put a TINY piece, since you're feeding him regularly, you can change it everytime you check to feed.
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If the box is cardboard, you might want to consider switching. It's a mouse and once he's old enough to eat solids, he's old enough to chew his way out of the box!

 

[FlickeringHope]

That's what he's been mostly doing - sucking on the bread soaked in milk. However, during his last feeding, I put in a pretty small piece, and he went to town, Lol.

I can do that, though. Thanks.

 

[Diamond01]

Be careful with a wild mouse if you have other mice or pets around they are not near him or her and wash your hand before and after. Also change you r close becuase things coudl be picked up and carried threw them sticking to the fabrick on your close. I have 4 baby mice that are wild and ready for reliase in the next cople of days I woudl have loved ot befriend them and kept them so they done not meat a faitlike my cats agian but i have to let nature take its course and they aparently dont want handeled. I've had them for 3 months now and feed them by hand they had jsut got thier eyes open when I found them and the mom meet my femael mouser cats. but after a whiel they woudl bit me when getting older and you cant tame the wild if it dont wantot be tamed.
Bt good luck with the little mouse I do hope if dose well and if you keep it as a pet its a nice little mouse.
Diamond

 

[FlickeringHope]

Trust me - I wash my hands before and after. And then I use alcohol sanitizing gel as an extra dose of clean. As for my clothes, he/she generally doesn't touch them - and the only time he/she does, is when he/she is getting fidgety and I automatically brace him/her against my chest to ensure it won't fall.

 

[Diamond01]

They are so cute when they are little. I have just started my 3 Orphaned kittend on bred and milk with now a little soft food started they are 3 1/2 4weeks old give or take. But they love it plus they still have to have their bottle.
At lest your baby mouse cleans him or her self off mine get all messy. lol but its all cute. Their mom had them in our shed or te walk in part and then moved them when they were aout 2 or 3 days from eye opening and then she brougth them back and has not been seen since their is one kitten missing.
How do you get the little thing not to bite you boy mine bit the crap out of me I had to wear a glove inless thats is just their wild instink kicked in. I wish you luck with the little cutie.
Diamond

 

[FlickeringHope]

I like kitties too, never had to bottle-feed though, There's a lot more of a kitten to hold onto than a pinkie mouse, though, lol.

I don't know... I guess I've always had that type of talent for rodents. People were amazed at the type of things I could do with my hamsters(putting their heads in my mouth, walking around with them on my shoulder, etc...) they were completely trusting of me not to harm them. It's a type of bond that has since rekindled with the appearance of this little guy, as I missed having hamsters very much.

Nibbling on your skin is normal for them signaling they're ready to wean, are you sure it wasn't nibbling at your hands because of that?

 

[Diamond01]

They were no bigger then the pet mice I have had when they get there eyes open they were ok for a week but when they got bigger they drew blood. I put my hamsters, rats mice haeads in my mouth around my town I'm known as the rat lady or the female Willard. I'm pretty good with animals in gerneral but there are the ocasinal few that are brats. lol
That is true it is easer to hold on to something bigger even a pinky rat would be a tat easer then a mouse. Was he or she a pinky pinky or have the eyes open already. it may have imprinted on you as mommy more so then the ones i have that already had their eyes open. So how is the little fella doing? got any pics?
Diamond

 

[FlickeringHope]

female Willard..?

Umm... I'd say he was about 10-12 days old. He was completely furred, he had good motor skills, but his eyes were still closed. I only estimate 10-12 days old based on a website I found that gave a chronological list of images for each day of a mouse's development. 10-12 was the best I could guess, and because he opened his eyes approximately 2 days later(apparently that happens at 12-14 days of age), I assumed he was like...12 days old at the time that I found him.

I had found another mouse prior to him, back in May of this year, who was even younger than him - I think he was....6 days old, his fur had just started to come in, his eyes didn't look at all developed, but his ears were beginning to separate from his skull. That one didn't survive... I think I nursed him for like...48 hours, and after 24 hours since I found him I got concerned because he started just suddenly loosing weight. It was heart-breaking, I thought he was doing so well at first and suddenly he just..lost the battle. :/ I fed him every 2 hours as recommended, got up every 2 hours at night, fed him every 2 hours during the day...but he still didn't survive.

So this one I found was days older and it made nursing a LOT easier. That's not to say he was necessarily easy to feed(it took several different methods until I found a method both he(or she) and I were comfortable with).

I do have pictures - only pictures from like..the day after I found him, though:

 

[Diamond01]

he or she is presouse. sorry my spelling sucks. Ever seen the movie willard about a guy and his army of rats? thats why they call me the female version. Thye say like the charicter in the book and movie I have a weird bond with my rats and other critters but I'm always seen with a rat. Its a movie/book baisced in the book Ben about a big black rat.
I wish you all the luck with him or her. did you name the mouse yet?
Diamond

 

[CrWoodyspets]

Such a cute mousie! How's everything going?

 

[pcunningham]

Glad your rescue ended better than mine!.